


Mutual Consumption

by thatonepeach



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: (abe and mito off-screen and in the past), (i'm making up the demon lore as i go don't @ me), Aged-Up Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Gore, Dark Fantasy, Demon!Killua, Farmer!Gon, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:07:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29193552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatonepeach/pseuds/thatonepeach
Summary: "Crystalline blue eyes stared back, frightened and impossibly glassy. If he hadn't been so alarmed by the sheer amount of blood covering them, Gon might have thought he met an angel that morning."⍕Farmer Gon Freecss meets a demon he thinks is an angel. A strange romance ensues.
Relationships: Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> howdy y'all, thanks for stopping by~
> 
> this here is the culmination of what started as a joke and quickly evolved into...well, whatever this is. 
> 
> thanks toasty for the title!

Atop a hill out in the sticks, the old Freecss farmhouse kept watch over a dense, white oak forest gashed in two by a wandering river. The days on that hill were loud when the leaves of the forest rustled in unison and quiet when the river could be heard eroding the curves of the land away bit by bit, shaping it to its liking—an intimate yet destructive affair. The river carried with it soiled washing suds and ribboned crimson blood and was the place Gon once bathed in as a child when out exploring with Kite. It dwindled to a whimpered trickle this time of year. 

The autumn equinox loomed round the bend, yet it was still so hot and muggy in the hill country that it was said the devil would think he were in hell if blindfolded. The blistering heat brought life to its peak nonetheless, honeying everything in a haze of cicada song in the day and cricket song at night, and so the air was perpetually heavy with the tang of sweating foliage and the river’s sweet musk—the ripe smell before much-needed petrichor. This was life on the frayed edges of an abandoned train town. 

Gon Freecss was the sole and lone successor of the Freecss farmhouse rooted deep in the fray. Today, he stood at the precipice of the forest and the river and the heat, Kite's heavy wooden rifle slung over-shoulder. Sniffing the air and clocking its familiarity, Gon kept near the riverbank where a meandering trail of delicate tracks led the way to a familiar browse. 

Many deer died here at the hands of Gon, but returned time and again, different herds throughout the seasons. He always reasoned it was natural. Every living thing was preyed on by another, even if it were only microscopic organisms in the soil preying passively and patiently. To think any type of way about simple truths like that was a philosopher's daydream as Kite used to say. 

“Regular folk can’t afford to live with their heads above the clouds lest they wander right off a cliff.' 

If there were any cliffs around, Gon might have proven Kite right. His mind tended to wander like anyone’s would if they were as confident in their intuition and working knowledge of the environment as he was. Clouds hung low in the sky but provided little relief from the sun as sparse as they were and Gon imagined himself up there as he trekked along. He knew he couldn’t sit on a cloud in all actuality, but if he could for just a moment, would he be able to taste water vapor on his tongue or smell lightning before it struck? 

It was easy to forget where he ought to be and just as quick to get right back down to Earth. 

Birds burst into a frenzied flight overhead, puncturing his cloud bubble. Their wings beat in a shocking flurry, competing with the river’s dull roar and silhouetted by the bruised sepia hue of an overcast summer's day. Gon's heart fluttered away with the birds when a blur of white flashed in his peripheral. He pivoted in the direction of the movement and readied the rifle quick and sharp as his ears strained to catch the thudding of panicking hooves and snapped twigs, but none came.

It wasn’t unusual for deer to linger in denser brambles, but whatever it was had passed too quickly, too quietly, and too high above the ground to be a deer or any four-legged dweller for that matter. Gon thoroughly scoped his surroundings, but there was no culprit to be found. Odd.

He continued despite the hair saluting on the back of his neck as the worn path beneath his feet met the clearing. He was now exposed to the heat thanks to the tall trees that didn’t canopy, their low hanging branches littering acorns on the damp ground, a deer's favorite snack embedded in every foot track Gon left as he tiptoed alongside a natural guard of bushes. He shouldn’t have moved as fast as he did, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of prying eyes. He was so focused on the openness laying ahead that he nearly missed the soundless red drop that splattered on the toe of his boot. He glanced up into the branches where a gathering of dark berries swayed, coated in a thick smatter of blood that marred his forehead next. 

He stepped from beneath the stained fruit, gripping the rifle's barrel tighter, the butt cowering in his shoulder. Through its scope, he surveyed the surrounding branches before he sampled the blood sliding between his brows. It pooled over the grooves of his fingertip a bright, angry red.

Gon knew this blood was from an artery by its hue, but it dripped so profusely and from so high it scared him. He urged his panicked deductions into silence and returned among the bushes in a crouch. He was to wait for further proof of his imminent safety or danger, but the answer came much too soon. 

Five sharp points dug into his jean’s rough hem and pierced his ankle. He retched his leg away, scrambled among thorns and soggy leaves, and aimed point-blank at a well-manicured but bloodied hand clawing toward him. Its spidery blue veins all streaked with the same vibrant blood overhead had his thumb flexing against the trigger as his heartbeat drummed wildly. Terror obliged him to shoot and kill—his current position simply wouldn’t do.

But then he heard a shaky breath, so human in its tremor that Gon blinked a few times until he was sorting through the bush. Among its cover, he found a pale, fawn-like human figure. They probably had a name and home and someone missing them. And they were bloodied on the forest floor with shredded flesh and nothing more. 

Gon lowered the rifle.

Crystalline blue eyes stared back, frightened and impossibly glassy. If he hadn't been so alarmed by the sheer amount of blood covering them, Gon might have thought he met an angel that morning. He pushed the stranger onto their back and gasped at the deep gouges seeping red from neck to ribs. The metallic sweet aroma of the wounds assaulted his sensitive nose and he felt a little sick though he'd seen plenty of blood in his life just no much of the human variety. 

And he'd never seen a wound like this before. The stranger's chest was torn messily, hurriedly, and from a bizarre angle. Gon knew he had to get them sitting upright before they choked on the blood. He had nothing more than deer quarter bags and the light jacket on his back, so he undressed from the waist up and used his shirt and jacket to dress the wounds as best he could before hoist their cold, limp body onto his back. He was used to hauling a hundred or so pounds back to the farmhouse, but that weight was usually balanced with the help of his dual harness and didn't leak warm blood and sticky tears. 

The stranger whimpered little but hardly protested. Were they already on death's door, waiting to be let in? 

⍕  
  
That day had been the hottest of the summer. Gon was lucky to miss the influx of heat brought by the rising sun as he trudged back up the hill, having caught a deer-like creature—their wrists delicate and thin and white hair fluffier than the underside of a doe's tail—though wholly missing the mark in terms of usability. There were no pelt, meat, or bones Gon could bring to town and sell. By all means, this was a setback in his routine, but Gon, the patient and doting caretaker he was reared to be, spent the remaining sunlit hours tending to his injured houseguest.

Sat bedside, patting a cool towel from the old, wheezing freezer in the basement over the stranger's inflamed face and neck, thoughts of Abe and Mito's respective dying days chased Gon's wandering mind. He once sat among the confines of this quaint and quiet room, had watched the same sheer, lace curtains struggle to billow and flutter as stuffy wind haunted across through the dusty space and out into the hall. He had smelled a similar smell of death, though not nearly as bloody. And he hadn't been nearly so alone.   
  
In the evening hours, a fever set in though the stranger shivered and shook as if they were laid to rest butt-naked in the dead of winter rather than tucked up all nicely under a heavy knitted quilt. Gon was hesitant to leave them but knew that he must. For if the stranger was to live, he needed to travel North near the abandoned train town and fetch one of the alcoholic herbal tinctures he once helped Kurapika forage for.   
  
Before leaving, geared-up with the keys to the rickety pickup out front, the stranger grabbed Gon as if they were frightened and bloodied on the forest floor all over again. Gon thought idly that the nails he'd cleaned of crusted blood were almost as sharp as claws. The stranger was delirious, tongue lolling out like a serpent's and eyes shining brighter than any cloudless sky. Gon thought they were beautiful if not slightly terrifying in their vehement confusion. He grabbed their wrist in return, acknowledging them. 

  
"Wh-where am...I?" they croaked. 

  
The voice was forked, rivaling itself in rasp and ring, unnatural. Gon reached for a glass of lukewarm tea on the bedside table and held the rim to the stranger's bowed, dry lips. They drank and then promptly spat the loamy liquid back at Gon. 

  
"Try to get some down or else—" 

  
The stranger pulled Gon's hand to their wet mouth and rubbed their nose along his pulse point. Their eyes rolled, and their teeth bared. Afraid, Gon stepped away but was met with surprising strength and resistance. His hand stayed firm in the stranger's grip. 

  
"I'm...hungry," they murmured, salivating. 

  
"Well, I'm not the tender chicken leg you're lookin' for. All's I've got is jerky and pickled veggies, 'n that'll just take energy your body needs to heal. I'm goin' out for medicine and something lighter to eat, a stew maybe." 

  
This was not a satisfactory answer. The stranger was angry, torn as if they couldn't decide whether to submit to Gon's offer or tear into him instead. But eventually, as if struck by a sudden moment of clarity, eyes wide and far away, they let go and slumped back into the frumpy, white pillows propped against the carved headboard. Startled, Gon wandered toward the window, ominous trepidation pounding behind his sternum. People did and said strange things in a fever; he had seen his fair share, but it never got any easier witness. 

  
A hungry, echoing howl greeted him as he stared out at the forest so black and endless it appeared to be the sea. Thankfully, he would be heading in the opposite direction, along the dirt road that cut up through cornfields and meadows with bales of hay. He could smell it from here—the dry dirt that clouded up beneath the pickup's tires and the hay's sweetness—though it did little to mask the blood. Gon had re-wrapped and cleaned the wounds earlier and was shocked at how still the stranger had been while he worked. But now, the white cloth he had repurposed from old shirts reeked, and the open window did little to clear it. He could hardly stomach it, and so he said goodbye to the stranger who had succumbed to sleep while his back was turned and headed downstairs and out the front door. 

  
All he could do was hope the stranger managed to survive through the night. 

⍕

He returned before dawn when the grass still glistened wet with dew, and his trusted rooster hadn't yet risen to crow atop its perch on the coop. The old farmhouse creaked with his careful steps, barely-there so as not to wake or startle the stranger. He'd steeled himself with a swig or two of moonshine from his and Kurapika's shopkeep acquaintance in the train town. He was ready to redress the wounds and figured it'd be best to do so when the stranger was unconscious. 

  
He thought it odd to find the dirtied cloth dried and the marred flesh of the wounds converging close and nearly sealed in only a quarter of a day. Perhaps the liquor had him off his rocker already, or he'd mistaken the severity of the situation among the panic and adrenaline that wired him earlier.   
  
But no, that wasn't right. Gon was steadfast and observational even at the peaks of fright. 

  
And yet, when he placed his hand over the stranger's heart where the deepest part of the wound had been, no dull thumping vibrated through his fingertips. His own heart swooped and plunged—too late. He tasted bile in his throat, the thought of digging another grave yanking at his ankles, and asking him to pray to Gods he had no proof of. 

  
Then the stranger gasped, and Gon didn't realize the heart refused to beat. He was too transfixed by heaving breath, and pupils pinpricked like the eye of a needle. He felt threaded into the opening as he looked and looked, mesmerized and indescribably relieved. 

  
"Hey, stranger," he whispered, "how're ya feeling?" 

  
"Like I died and came back to life." 

  
"No good, huh?" 

  
The stranger grunted and turned in bloodied sheets. 

  
"My name's Killua, by the way. Not _stranger_."  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for giving this a chance! 
> 
> i'm having so much fun writing this and am so excited to take yall on this journey~

The stranger, who called himself Killua Zoldyck and announced he was from out of town, proved to be a handful of a man. It was all Gon could do to go along with his wishes. 

Right away, this Killua fellow leapt from the bed with a spring in his step that no man clawed to the very inside bits ever should. He went for the old wardrobe in the corner as naked as the day he came and Gon, bless his heart, laid his worn cowboy hat to his chest as it seemed the right thing to do. Though he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the elegant backside of his new houseguest. 

“You wear…all of this?” Killua asked, bending over and giving Gon the view of a man of which he’d never seen before. 

Gon’s eyebrows hid in his hairline, the polite protest caught in his throat as Killua brought out one of Mito’s rare cashmere cardigans, looking to Gon all scandalized. There was no time for Gon to wipe the heat from his face and so he wore it proudly and bowed like he was presenting to some royal being. This surprised Killua who looked Gon up and down, all slow like, and holy hell did Gon’s blood pump the moonshine through him. 

“I coulda sworn you were…all scratched up, ’n bad shape,” said Gon, explaining his appreciating gaze. It was true mostly and that’s all that mattered. “Sorry.”

“Someone’s had a bit too much to drink,’ mumbled Killua dryly, slipping into the cardigan and the cardigan alone. He wrapped it around his nearly healed figure and blinked at Gon a few times. “Is this okay?”

“Yes.” It was way more than okay, but also… “you can wear that, but if ‘ya want pants and a shirt, it’d be best to wear my things.” Because Killua was a finely built man like himself, though more long and lean and pretty and…

Killua laughed suddenly enough to startle Gon and he felt caught until he realized Killua was laughing at his hair, probably sticking out every which way, his hat having done little to tame it as per usual. 

“No offense,” he said haughtily, “but you look as if the only clothes you’ve got are the ones on your back.”

“None taken.” Gon was flattered to have made Killua laugh, but something still wasn’t sitting quite right. “Say, Killua, d’you remember me dragging you back here from the woods? D’ya know why the beds all bloody ’n why…you’re here?”

Killua shrugged, all nonchalance and legs as he roved toward the window and peered out. His wild, white hair whipped around, and again Gon’s gaze meandered from head to toe. How was this stranger standing and bending like that when all the evidence of his mutilation was crusted in the tips of his hair and in the bedsheets? Killua had to remember _something_.

“Where out of town r’you from?” 

The moon highlighted Killua’s pale skin as he turned over his shoulder, gaze piercing Gon right in his lonely heart. He gulped and stood a little straighter. Killua shot him a question back.

“What’s your name?”

“I asked first.”

“I was born in the mountains,” Killua answers dismissively, “what’s your name?”

“M’name’s Gon Freecss. If you’re from up North then what’re you doing here?”

“Don’t know. That’s a great question actually. Where exactly did _you_ find me?”

“In the woods…like I said. Down by the river.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Killua accused in tone alone and never had Gon’s sincerity been questioned before, “and is it just you living here?”

This interrogation was sudden and calculated, but it was warranted all things considered. Peculiar happenings were afoot, and if Gon was gonna figure out anything, it served well to be trusted first. He went to the bedside table and began unpacking the medicinal tinctures and ointment. 

“Only me,” he said honestly. “C’mere.”

Killua made a face. “No thanks.”

“By some miracle, your wounds’ve healed real nice, but ya should still have it treated for an infection. That’s what my friend Kurapika said anyway. His lover’s a doctor.”

Killua snorted. “You believe in miracles?”

“They’re rare but they exist. ‘N how else would you explain yourself,” mumbled Gon.

“I can’t explain what I don’t know.”

This Killua stranger sure was snarky, nipping like a frosty winter morning when Gon’s furnace wouldn’t turn. Thankfully it was the middle of summer, so Gon could use the chill.

“Sure, sure. Anyhow,” he said, beckoning Killua with a finger, “cmon. Let me at least wipe ya down.”

Killua’s eyes narrowed in on the gesture. He appeared thoroughly unconvinced and mocking. Gon thought this was much like trying to coax a feral cat to come close. His last time touching Killua could very well have been when he had thought the man were dead and that didn’t sit right in Gon’s chest for some reason. A lot about the situation didn’t sit right, and Gon was curious as all hell to know why. 

“Seriously, I’m good. Thanks for everything, but—“ the stranger’s stomach growled loudly and he grew even paler “—I’ve got to get going.”

Gon reached for Killua before he could flee and caught him by the wrist. “Y’can’t go anywhere on an empty stomach, ’n not dressed like that neither.”

He hadn’t meant to, but Gon had apprehended the hand keeping the cardigan’s wings wrapped round front and now they hung open, no longer swallowing Killua’s lithe body. Exposed were the scraggly remains of the marks on his chest, now a fine silver topography that led to the cut of an extremely well-endowed man.

“If _that’s_ what you’re after you have no idea what you’re asking for.” 

Killua snatched his arm free and Gon blushed at the implication. He made himself meet Killua’s eye.

“Pardon me,” he groveled, reorienting his hat atop his head and stepping in front of Killua’s escape route, “but it just ain’t right to let you go in the state you’re in. Furthest I’ll take you is town if you’d like, but at least let me clothe and feed ya. My family’d turn in their graves if I didn’t try my best to do so.”

And that was how Gon got Killua to stay as he seemed to understand something or two about family. He gave Killua his nicest shirt and jeans to which the man said, “these are a little scratchy,” so Gon let him keep the cardigan. During the day when the sun rose to its peak, the stranger complained, “don’t you have any air-conditioning?”

And when Gon placed before him a hearty helping of eggs, pickled okra, and smoked venison jerk, Killua said, “don’t you have anything more…alive?” He was looking on at Gon as if he’d grown a second head. “Fresh meat,” he prompted, “something that isn’t dry and months old?”

Gon laughed. He’d never met a man so particular.

“Well, I might’ve if you’d been a deer and not…well… _you_. But I’m glad you’re you. Never met someone from up North before. Everyone there have superhuman healing abilities?”

“Tch! Something like that.” Killua rose from his chair with his arms crossed. ”Look, you’ve been great, super kind. I’m sure you’re family’s proud. I’m leaving now.”

“But you’ve not eaten.”

“I’ve lost my appetite, thanks.” Outside the rooster crowed in the following silence, and Killua perked up slightly, heading over to the window where the chickens roamed. “Actually, make me one of those instead if you want me to eat so bad.”

“I don’t kill ‘em,” said Gon seriously as he dug into his own food in hopes of washing down the still lingering moonshine haze, “they’re nice and lay me eggs.”

“Nice? They just want you to feed them.”

“That’s generally how you get people to feed you,” Gon noted kindly. 

Killua stared down at Gon, watched him chew his dry, months-old jerky. A smug little smile came across his face, eyes adrift in mischief. Never had anyone looked at Gon in such a way.

“ _Say_ ,” Killua drawled, mimicking Gon’s homegrown dialect, “you live here by yourself and your parents are dead. Am I getting this right?”

Gon set his fork down on his plate and raised his chin. “Yeah, what about it?”

“Aren’t you lonely?”

“Sometimes,” Gon said honestly, a little confused as to where Killua was going with this. “But ‘m not lonely now.”

The very notion made Killua bristle. Gon couldn’t tell if he was delighted or repulsed. “Don’t get visitors often, do you?”

“None as handsome as you.” Gon hadn’t meant to say exactly that but it’d been weighing on him the moment he saw Killua in the woods, as battered and bloody as he was and now unwaveringly was not. He continued on before Killua could keep ripening like a tomato, “I don’t mean that in any way other than a simple fact. Does everyone up North have hair as white as snow?”

“You don’t get out much, do you?”

“Not 'round your parts, no.”

Killua huffed and sat atop the table, his legs crossed and his pointy knees near Gon’s face. He seemed to have a change of heart.

“Well, Mr. Freecss,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair as if he were truly put out, “I was trying to be polite and get out of your way, but in all truth, I have no clue where I am and I need to reorient myself before heading home. Could I stay for a while?”

“Please do. I’ll drive ya into town if you need to make a call. There’s a payphone outside the grocery store.”

“You don’t have a phone?”

“Don’t see much of a need for one considerin’ my friends are just down the road.”

“What if there’s an emergency?”

It was Gon’s turn to shrug. He was ninety-nine percent sure he could handle most of whatever could come his way. Most certainly a picky, snooty Northener, the likes of which he was sure he’d found the most beautiful one. Gon was sure, even, that if an angel were to fall from heaven and turn a demon as the church folk claimed they tended to do, he’d have no problem surviving their terror. 

He was Gon Freecss after all. There was nothing he couldn’t tame.


End file.
